Tout is enigmatic in this new show by Romeo Castellucci, Broswhose announced theme, “police violence”, triggers a priori various expectations and worries in the mind of the informed viewer. Its title first, in the form of a bark, a half-word (a half brother/a fake brother), a sign of recognition between males proud of their camaraderie and which one wonders if it evokes the esprit de corps of the police, if it refers to a motto of fraternity, if it is ironic, rhythmic, playful…
His beginning then: where we expect a group of muscular men dressed in black and duly armed, we see a bearded old man appear, erratic in his white nightgown. Escaped from an asylum, from a nightmare, from a book? This could be the start of Storm or the end ofWaiting for Godot. Finally arrived, but too late, too old: Godot is almost dead. Prophet of a time that is already gone, the old vaticine in a language that we do not understand (we learn off set that it is Romanian). Leaning on the skeleton of a tree, a memory perhaps of Beckett’s, like him a vestige of a past life, he finally returns to the bed of death or renunciation around which the police keep watch, finally arrived for a sort of black mass. . The forces of order surround the white beard and pass him an obscure shroud, like a handover, promise of hell or dictatorship.
The time for spirituality is over. Only ghosts remain, which the show will conscientiously summon in the form of large black and white photos transported from the back to the front stage: Greek temple, portrait of Samuel Beckett, animal, dreamy young woman… Civilization endures in its icons but it is reduced to the state of decoration for a new order, which organizes, monitors, punishes, cleans what it has soiled without leaving any visible traces of its passage.
Welcome to Saint Supplice sur Ordre.
From the end of this first tableau, we witness the ballet of authorized violence. No drive, no rise of nervousness among the actors of this machinery. We don’t strike out of anger, we don’t drown out of jealousy. The violence here is collective, institutional, authorized. So she has her costume: a police uniform, dark blue. His accessories: truncheon, pistol. His gesture: hello, no hits. Its ceremonies: procession, rank, group effects. His partner: the wolf-dog, held on a leash.
No words, however, the agents are silent. They are exactly performers, doers. The twenty-three fellows, recruited in each city where the show is played to put on the clothes that make the cop, are guided by orders they receive from the management, in a discreet headset. They were quickly trained in this robotic operation, and must blindly carry out the commands given to them. Of course, they know, and so do we, that this is just theatre. Yet this calm and implacable submission, easily transposable to other universes, is more chilling than the bloody disorder of a Tarantino film.
Devoid of text, the show is not silent: the hectic soundtrack, saturated with basses that make the room vibrate, creates a haunting environment, which one cannot escape. Clicking pistol triggers. Amplified truncheon blows that echo. And a few cries like glimpses of humanity. In the central beating scene, three unfazed policemen harass a naked man, of whom only the white back is visible. Perfectly choreographed, this scene shows without any explanation the passion of an anonymous person, the massacre of an innocent… After the amplified blows, timid infant cries resound. First so softly that one might fear that a baby has wandered off into the audience. These are in fact the cries torn from this tortured body, which, to be pale, is not of marble, and gives to hear its humanity, reduced to primal complaints. Great violence transforms beings into frightened and helpless little children. And we could be moved, even revolted, if another news did not soon present itself to us in a new painting. The broom has passed over the blood that has flowed, the waltz of photographs and group movements can resume.
And it may never stop, as the ultimate textual panel held up to our sagacity suggests to us: the chicken or the egg? The origin of the violence is undetermined, it passes from the initial old man to the group of police officers who finally pass a truncheon to a child, dressed in white like the old man and wearing the coat of arms of the police. Thus doubly dubbed, the chick will not do better than its predecessors and obscurantism has a bright future ahead of it.
Disoriented by what they saw and perhaps what they didn’t feel, the audience leaves this spectacle realizing their own lack of empathy. Thus presented in collective and choreographed form, violence ceases to be a scandal. It is a spectacle, magnificent, in which we do not intervene since our presence, as codified as the rest, consents to the execution of a superior, aesthetic order. It is undoubtedly this attitude that Castellucci really leads us to question by the force of this experience: is well-organized violence more acceptable than its unleashing? when do we stop being willing spectators?
Both archaic in its form (functioning in chorus, dramaturgy close to the liturgy, importance of rhythm…) and contemporary in the construction of a cold and robotic universe (the three machines at the entrance herald the well-oiled group of policemen ), Bros is a mystery, in the medieval manner, but the demonstration of the law has replaced the profession of faith and leaves us with a lingering impression of great cold.
Bros by Romeo Castellucci Conception and direction Romeo Castellucci • Music Scott Gibbons • With Valer Dellakeza, the agents, Luca Nava, Sergio Scarlatella, the children Adrien Marseille and Achille Zanouda • With street men . Assistant directors Filippo Ferraresi and Silvano Voltolina • Dramaturgy collaboration Piersandra Di Matteo • Technical direction Eugenio Resta • Stage technician Andrei Benchea • Lights Andrea Sanson • Sound Claudio Tortorici • Costumes Chiara Venturini